The Road Not Taken
by ThreeBlackCrows
Summary: In his latest scheme Voldemort opens a door between two worlds. But who or what will come through and what lies on the other side?
1. Chapter 1, Track 1

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.

A/N: This story was written before the publication of OOTP.

Track 1

Halloween, 1986

Godric's Hollow

James and Lilly Potter were on their way back from Dumbledore's Halloween ball, where many of the wizards belonging to the headmaster's circle had met. The event had not been meant for entertainment purposes only, but they had been able to forget about the serious situation they were in for a while, before they had been called into the headmaster's study with the others. They had spent long hours there, before they had been able to make their way back.

They had left their six years old son Harry with a good and reliable friend, and so they re-apparated in some distance to their home, to walk the rest of the way and enjoy one of the rare, peaceful nights. The moon was high in the sky, and the night was cool, as was to be expected at this time of the year, although the last days had been pretty mild.

Lilly's thin and elegant princess dress looked to be made of magic rather than cloth, and she was getting cold soon. She shuddered.

"Cold?" James whispered. They were walking so close that she could feel the air stirring at her ear when he talked.

They had reached a point from where they had a good view over all of Godric's Hollow. James draped his red overcoat around his wife's shoulders as they stopped.

Lilly pulled the soft coat closer around her, and leaned slightly into James. For a few minutes they stood there, unmoving, enjoying each other's company and the view.

Suddenly, James pointed.

"Look! Over there!" he called excitedly.

His wife looked into the direction his hand gave her. She winced. Green smoke rose from a house, forming the Dark Mark in the air above it.

They needed another moment to realize what they were looking at. Whirling around, Lilly stared at James, her eyes wide with fear. "That's our house!" she yelled. Then she was gone, racing down the hill as quickly as the dress she was wearing would permit. James was close behind her.

o

The Deatheaters had been thorough, that much they could see at once. They had obviously not minded using anything else than magic to destroy whatever they could get their hands on. The gate was on the ground, broken into various pieces, some meters away from the fince. The door was open, swinging on a broken hinge, and some windows had been shatterd from the inside.

James was the first to enter the house, wordlessly, his wand ready in his hand. Just behind the door he froze. He had just stepped onto a battlefield. Not a single piece of furniture was still upright. Even the heaviest things had been pushed over. Every step brought him down on glass shards or pieces of parchment. The smell of blood, mixed with something else, was heavy in the air. The wall across the room sported a wide, dark patch.

Lilly suppressed a scream when she followed her husband.

A figure lay face down by their feet, motionless. Hesitating, James knelt to turn the man onto his back. "Goyle..." he hissed. At least the deatheaters had not gotten away without losses on their side. This knowledge was bitter satisfaction for him.

Although she knew what she was going to find, Lily ran into the nursery, followed by her husband. Her dress caught on an upturned table, which was almost blocking the door. She never noticed when the thin cloth ripped.

Seconds later, they saw what they had already known, but denied until the very last moment. The deatheaters had not come to rip their home to pieces. Harry had obviously died under the Avada Kedavra spell. His death had been fast and painless, but that was not much of a consolation for the Potters.

Lily was fighting down tears. They could not, must not linger, not even to murn their dead son. The danger of the deatheaters, not having found their original target, returning to finish what they had come for, was too big.

If Harry's death was to be revenged, they had to return to Hogwarts, to speak with Dumbledore. They had one more thing to do first, though...

o

James lit his way with a lumos. Following a track of blood and shattered furniture, hours seemed to pass before they found what they had been looking for. Severus had fought with all his strength. The room was in pieces too small or too badly damaged to recognize their original shapes. Scorched and burnt pieces were everywhere, as well as bits of broken wood. The smell of fresh and half-dried blood was mixed with the disgusting stink of burned flesh and something stronger, something even worse that James refused to identify.

The man who had become James' and Lily's best friend after their time at Hogwarts, lay lifelessly in a corner of their destroyed living room. His left hand had never released it's death grip on his shattered wand. If he was still alive, the death eaters must have left only scant minutes before they had arrived.

With slow, deliberate steps, his eyes never moving from the back of Snape's head, James walked over, to do what he had to do. He bit the back of his hand to keep from screaming of vomiting when he went to his knees on the blood-soake carpet next to his friend.

An agonized sound proved his worst fear to be true. The deatheaters had killed the child quickly, but they had not spoiled their own fun by killing the adult with an uncomplicated Avada Kedavra. Their fury for not finding Lily and James had been turned onto the babysitter Snape.

No man in his condition had any right to be alive anymore, let alone conscious. Severus was both. It could only mean, that he was still under some very powerful spells that kept him that way.

James' eyes moved over Snape's body, and he realized, that there was no way to help his friend. It looked as if someone had cut open his belly, put his hand in the wound and pulled out anything he could grab. More probably, some spell that was meant for tearing furniture to pieces had bounced off something and hit him, but the result was the same. The only thing that could be keeping Snape alive still was magic.

"Sev..." James murmured, reaching out to brush bloody strands of hair from his friend's face. His mind was racing, trying in vain to remember a spell, any spell, to help Severus, no matter how.

Slowly, inch by inch, Snape's head turned into James' direction. His eyes were open, but they looked through James, blindly, their usual color turned a milky white. Pain contorted a face that told more about the fight than the other man wanted to know. The right side of Snape's face had been touched by a fire spell. It had left a black track across his cheek, and the heat had sufficed to blister the skin around it. Four deep, bloody cuts ran down the other half. Some animagus must have jumped at him there.

He had barely enough strength left to manage a painful whimper when James' hand touched one of those cuts, but he was trying to say something nevertheless. If there were no words coming from Snape's mouth, they were drowned in the blood that came with them.

"Easy, Sev. Don't try to speak", James said, feeling helpless. Had he been able to muster enough concentration, he would have been tempted to try the Avada Kedavra himself.

While he could do nothing but murmur comforting lies and stay with his dying friend, Lily silently entered the room. The self-control she showed when she knelt beside the two men, putting the coat James had given her an eternity ago, in another life - or so it seemed - was surprising. Her face was tight and pale. She bit her lips until she tasted blood. Once again, there were tears in her eyes, but she stayed with them. Carefully, he took Snape's left hand. There was not much left of his right one.

"Easy, Sev. We're with you", she told him, her voice choked with tears, not knowing if he was even able to hear her.

Once again, Snape's mouth moved, unable to produce a sound. This time, it was not necessary. The word his bloody lips were forming was more than clear. 'Please.'

Tears blurred the world in front of Lily's eyes. "Finite Incantatem", she whispered.

A shudder when through Snape's body.

Lily and James could only watch helplessly, as Severus took one last painful breath, before his head fell to one side, and the spell that had so horribly prolonged his life, dissolved.


	2. Chapter 2, Track 2

Track 2 

Halloween, 1986

Privet Drive, Little Whinging

Harry Potter woke in the closet where he slept in his aunt and uncle's house. He had just had the worst nightmare ever. A nightmare that he could almost remember. Almost.


	3. Chapter 3, Track 2

Track 2 

August 31., 1996

A Swamp

Cursing, Remus tried to keep his balance when the ground suddenly gave beneath him. The gleaming container he had been carrying fell, but he had more important things on his mind right now. There was a smacking sound when the swamp released his foot. Hurriedly, he bent over to free his shoe, still stuck in the mud. He pulled it out, turned it over to drain it of the foul smelling water as well as he could, and put it on again.

Looking down at himself, the werewolf grimaced. His robes were drenched up to the knees, as were the pants he wore underneath. The cloth kept swinging heavily and wet against his legs with every step. The sound the remaining water in his shoe produced did not exactly help his mood.

He almost forgot the reason for his spending the evening in one of the most dangerous swamps he knew of. He jumped after the container, which was trying to vanish in the mud.

The three balls of light, floating behind the magiced glass in the small cage-like container seemed to sneer at him in their dance. Actually, it was hilarious. The teacher for Defense against the dark arts had lost his way trying to catch Will-o'Wisps for his class. Out, Lupin, you failed!

About fifteen feet ahead of him, another small ball of light floated in the air. Lupin dropped back and pulled out his wand.

"Accio", he whispered, but his target danced out of the way and his spell hit only empty air. Now it kept just out of the range of a well-aimed spell.

This time, he made sure the ground would carry him before taking every step. He was not too fond of almost bathing in swamp water.

Half an hour later, he put the fourth Will o' Wisp in his container. He was tired and had lost all enthusiasm for this work of collecting interesting specimen. If he kept working at this speed, he would still be at it by dawn, when the sunlight was too bright for him to see his targets.

He stopped, catching his breath, when he heard a low whisper.

Sowly he lifted his head and concentrated. Human ears would have been unable to discern the sound from the whistling of the wind, but part of the sharpened senses of a werewolf stayed with Remus even between full moons.

The bits of talk the wind carried into his direction were not loud enough to understand the words. Without reaching a conscious decision, he moved into the direction the whispering came from, his wand ready in his hand.

In the center of the swamp there was a circular spot of rather reliable ground. Centuries ago, it had been created by magic, but its inhabitants had long since left. The spells keeping the ground dry and hard were dissolving, and muddy puddles started to form. The swamp recovered what it had once lost.

At the moment, there was no danger yet of drowning in mud here. The ruin of a small cottage rose into a sky lighted by an eerie green glow, which emphasized the edges of the crumbling walls and the shadows they cast. The only plants remaining were a few small, leafless trees starved or in various stages of decay, the only witnesses left of the events which had once taken place on this island.

Remus stood behind one of these ruined trees, his hands on the slick bark, the container with his catch by his feet, watching the scene playing out before him.

The gaunt figure standing on the free space in front of the cottage was not quite human. Red eyes glowed in a hairless, reptile skull. The robe hanging form Voldemort's shoulders almost brushed the ground. The Dark Lord's body was not big enough to fill it properly, and folds of cloth kept moving around him in the wind. It did seem to be immune to water.

A small man stood next to the dark being. His shoulders drooped, and he looked as if he was just about to fall to his knees to beg for mercy from his lord. Remus was unable to see his fearful face from where he stood, but he knew Peter Pettigrew well enough to imagine it. Whatever Lord Voldemort was doing over there, the small guy was fearing for his life.

Good.

It was well enough that he should.

Remus just could not make himself suppress the grim satisfaction this thought brought to him.

Slowly he returned his focus to the dark Lord. He had drawn a glowing design in the air. The bright light hurt Lupin's eyes, but he was unable to turn away. Then the glowing green lines merged into a frame, with a figure appearing inside...

Surprise and shock made Remus step back. His foot hit the container on the ground. He struggled to stay on his feet, lost, and fell over into the dirt.

Before he had time to get up again, Wormtail was racing over to his hiding place. Remus Lupin left his container where it was and ran as fast as he could.

It was easy for Pettigrew to follow. The werewolf's tracks could be seen clearly: Every step made him sink in deeper. Water collected in the prints his shoes left in the mud. Voldemort's servant followed his friend without exerting himself. Remus had to hit a dead end sooner or later.

Breathing heavily, Remus stopped dead, when he heard the sound accompanying any apparating person. Voldemort appeared in his way.

Only now, his last, deadly mistake began to sink in. In his panic, he had acted instinctively, running instead of apparating back to Hogwarts while he had still a chance to escape.

Trying to catch his breath, he faced the dark creature which seemed to float above the swamp as calmly as he could. Determination and Defiance were the only emotions in his eyes. He banished fear into the darkest corner of his soul, where it was still gnawing at him with all it's strength. His veins seemed to carry pure adrenaline instead of blood.

Motionles, Voldemort stood over the swamp, returning the werewolf's gaze with open hatred. He lifted his wand, pointing it at Lupin.

The Werewolf dissaparated in the same moment the spell hit him.

Pain took away his concentration, and he almost fainted. He lost his balance, stumbling and hitting the ground hard. Groaning, he turned to his back. Stars were glittering between the trees' branches.

He was in a forest. Remus had no idea if it was really his target, the Forbidden Forest. He had been lucky to arrive in one piece, no matter where. His hand touched the wound in his side. His robe was wet already. Even the light touch caused a burning pain, as if another spell had hit him. Remus shut his eyes, until the world stopped spinning around him.

Albus!

Albus had to know what he had witnessed in the swamp.

Slowly, swaying, he got first to his knees, then his feet, there was no way that he would be able to apparate again. He was unable to concentrate on a spell.

Keeping one hand on the wound in his side, he set off. Every step took him through hell, but he forced himself to go on. He forbade himself to think about what would happen if this was not the Forbidden Forest.

There was only one thing in his thoughts: Go on, go, go to Hogwarts. He stumbled, fell, and somehow got up again. Branches slapped his face and tore at his clothes. The creatures of the forest caught his scent, smelled the blood on him, and stayed near. He never heard their sounds, never noticed the gleaming eyes watching him from the darkness, much too near. His  
werewolf's scent was the only thing that saved him from being eaten alive right there and then.

Finally - he had reached the last trees. In front of him, a number of little lights painted the castle's huge form into the night sky. Hagrid's hut was a blur of light, not quite as far.

Remus stumbled on. Then he had to stop, trying to clear his head, to make the world stop spinning once again. It happened more and more often. He had lost his wand, and the strength to give any kind of signal. Step by step he moved on.

The ground seemed to move under his feet. He fell.

His arms trembled as he tried to push himself up again. He did not get far, before he sank back to the ground.


End file.
